15-1 Use sociological concepts to explain the rise and impact of social movements such as the women’s movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the civil rights movement, and the Tea Party.

15-2 Contrast social movements and other types of collective action, such as crowds, riots, and disasters.

15-3 Describe the process of social change, particularly the interactions of globalization, consumption, and the rise of the Internet.

Social change creates variations over time in every aspect of the social world. Social movements are sustained and inten­tional collective efforts, usually operating outside established institutional channels, either to bring about social change or to retard it. Prominent social movements include the Tea Party, feminist movements, gay and lesbian movements, and the civil rights movement.

The emergence of a social movement requires a set of griev­ances, efforts at mobilization, opportunities within the political system, the proximity of people, the availability of free space to meet, and the availability of resources. Factors that affect the success of a social movement include its size and uniqueness as well as other groups’ ability to suppress the movement. When successful, a social movement can leave a lasting legacy.

Social movements constitute one type of collective action. Collective action is action generated, or engaged in, by a group of people. Emergent norm theory, based on the idea that new norms emerge in light of some precipitating event and guide the often nontraditional behaviors that characterize collective action, is the dominant theoretical approach to examining types of col­lective action. Other types of collective action include crowds, riots, and responses to disasters.

Social change is particularly characteristic of globalization, con­sumption, and the Internet. Globalization is arguably the most important change in human history and is characterized by great flows of liquid phenomena across the globe. The Internet is both a form and an aspect of globalization and has expedited glo­balization. The global economy focuses on increasing the flows of everything related to consumption and reducing the barriers to these flows.